


a sea-change, into something rich and strange

by blancwene



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:01:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27950417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blancwene/pseuds/blancwene
Summary: "Luke was a decent swimmer, and he swam laps back and forth with careful concentration. Callista kept pace with him for a few moments, reacquainting herself with the steady synchronization of arms and legs. But she felt alive and quick and fluid again, and soon abandoned his orderly circuits to dive down deep and marvel at the hard-shelled crawlfish and the delicately fringed plants. The water wasn’t as buoyant as her childhood ocean on Chad, but the clarity of the water fascinated her."Luke and Callista, on Yavin 4.
Relationships: Callista Ming/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7
Collections: Star Wars Rare Pairs 2020





	a sea-change, into something rich and strange

**Author's Note:**

  * For [atamascolily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/gifts).



Callista’s time on Belsavis had been consumed partially by the explication of the crypt’s Jedi training tools to Luke and his sister—but if she was honest, mostly by getting accustomed to a physical body again. After years in the gunnery mainframe, it took conscious effort to remember the rhythm of walking and the concentration required to grasp things properly. Besides, Plawal felt too steamy and sinister for her to contemplate any kind of relaxation. Her first few days on Yavin 4 were likewise spent in instruction, though this time it was Luke and the other Jedi students who shouldered the bulk of the explanations.

So she was pleasantly surprised—and relieved, always relieved every morning she awakened to remember that she was free and the Eye was destroyed for good—to find Luke leaning over her, already dressed.

“Do you have any swimming togs?” he asked after a lingering morning kiss.

“I should,” she answered, swinging her legs off the bed and walking over to her storage chest. “I think your sister’s idea of a basic wardrobe is a tiny bit skewed by her royal upbringing. It was so kind of her to order me all these things, but I can’t imagine I’ll need multiple formal gowns at the Jedi _praxeum_.” 

“It’s not unheard of. After the battle of Yavin, we had a ceremony in the Grand Audience Chamber. Leia had to scrounge up an outfit for me—I think she borrowed it from one of the other pilots? I loved that jacket.”

Callista pulled two swimsuits from the depths of the chest—Leia was nothing if not thorough. “Are we going to the hot springs?” she asked curiously. Tionne had shown her the sulfuric pool deep beneath the Great Temple, but only as one short stop on a larger tour of the academy.

Luke shook his head, smiling.

“An expedition, then?”

“Can’t stay holed up in here forever,” he replied, grabbing his backpack. “We’ll get something to eat then head out.”

Luke led her south of the Great Temple, and they trekked through the jungle and onto the Taurin Delta. “I thought the rivers here are decidedly unfriendly to humans,” she said, sidestepping a fallen tree that housed a (fortunately slumbering) family of sintaril.

“The rivers are full of predators,” Luke agreed, taking her hand and pulling her up the slope. “Armored eels and anglers eat lizard crabs, aquatic gundarks eat runyips and whisper birds, and crystal snakes are definitely venomous. But there are also—” He reached the top, and peered downwards. “Hold that thought. We’ll have to head down, and then up another rise before we get to my dramatic reveal.”

“You’ve never been here before?” Callista asked, interlocking her fingers with his and letting her shoulder bump against his own.

He reddened. “I saw it on one of the old Rebel survey maps. But I didn’t do a whole lot of recon when I picked Yavin 4 for the academy site—probably should have, though.”

“You based your decision off fond memories from before,” she guessed.

“Yeah. Doesn’t excuse what happened last year, though.”

They jogged down the hill in silence, then started up the next rise. The trees thinned as they neared the top, and Luke tugged her on towards the peak.

“Now we’ll restart my dramatic reveal: but there are also freshwater pools. Or ponds?” He shrugged. “I don’t know the proper term.”

Below her lay a perfectly circular pool, its waters crystal clear except for the dark boil in the center. Lush plants and rocks ringed the shore, and the water shone turquoise in the sunlight.

“It’s spring-fed?”

“Chemistry’s completely different from the underground ones. Probably frigid, though,” Luke warned. “Biggest life forms are crawlfish, and they’re harmless.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Callista grabbed Luke’s other hand in hers and pulled him downhill, picking up speed as she went. But she released him before they hit the shore, kicking off her boots and shimmying out of her jumpsuit.

She dashed into the shallows and ducked her head under the water. It was ice cold, but so clear—the sand and pebbles came into sharp focus, tiny minnows visible as they skirted her feet. She surfaced, shivering, and paddled out past the drop-off before turning back to the shore.

“Don’t tell me you can’t swim,” she called back to Luke. He paused in the act of carefully folding her things to skewer her with an indignant look.

“Of course I can swim!”

“Then why aren’t you in the water already?”

He placed her clothes in his backpack with his own, zipped the closure, and stowed it behind some rocks. Dipping a hand in the water, he grimaced, then slowly began to walk in.

“You’ll acclimate faster if you dunk your head under.”

“I have a method,” he replied, but then he hit the drop-off and his head vanished. He re-emerged a moment later, spluttering.

“Come on, desert boy,” she said, drifting back towards him. “I want to swim.”

Luke was a decent swimmer, and he swam laps back and forth with careful concentration. Callista kept pace with him for a few moments, reacquainting herself with the steady synchronization of arms and legs. But she felt alive and quick and fluid again, and soon abandoned his orderly circuits to dive down deep and marvel at the hard-shelled crawlfish and the delicately fringed plants. The water wasn’t as buoyant as her childhood ocean on Chad, but the clarity of the water fascinated her.

She had grown so accustomed to seeing through the Eye’s sensors—infrared and movement and audio compressed into binary numbers—that the colors and details were a constant revelation: verdant leaves, ruddy crustaceans, silver-scaled fish, pebbles ranging in hue from tan to gray to almost blue in the flickering light, and above all the blue-green water surrounding her. 

After exploring a good portion of the bottom, she resurfaced next to Luke. He had finished his laps and lay floating on his back, his eyes half-closed. She tread water next to him.

“Where did you learn to swim—not on Yavin, then?”

He turned his head to watch her. “No, too busy flying missions with the Rogues. I learned during a ground insertion mission—Per Lupelo, maybe? Ritzy place. Janson tossed me in a pool, then fished me out when he realized I couldn’t swim. Hobbie took pity on me and gave me some lessons.”

He reached for her left hand with his own, and she let him tug her onto her back until her side lay nestled snug against his own. “It must have been so foreign to you,” she said.

“I’ve never grown used to it. Water was rare on Tatooine—I couldn’t imagine this much water existed. But what about you, fish girl?”

“I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t swim,” Callista admitted. “Papa had me bobbing like a cork when I was very small; float first, he said, and you probably won’t drown. Uncle Claine taught me the various strokes later: front crawl, flutter kick, backstroke.”

She pushed a wet lock of hair off Luke’s forehead, and they lapsed into silence. The sun beat down on her face, and the gentle current slowly pushed them back towards the shore. She closed her eyes, focusing on the echoing calls of distant woolamanders and the rhythmic lap of small waves against the shore.

She almost missed Luke’s voice in her ear. 

“Did you miss the sea, when you left for your Jedi training?”

“At first, absolutely. But I discovered new worlds, and new ideas. Chad’s ocean was my childhood, but the whole galaxy was my future. Is my future,” she corrected herself.

Luke shivered beside her, and she craned her head to look at him. “Are you cold?”

“Freezing,” he confessed.

“I don’t believe it.” She gently pushed him back towards the shore.

“Need to lay in the sun,” he said, staggering out on the rocky bank. “You keep swimming.”

“I will!” Callista called back. She watched Luke settle on one of the larger rocks, his backpack serving as a makeshift pillow, then headed out towards the boil.

The water bubbled up in the center of the pool, and she took a deep breath before plunging down into the vertical cavern below. Stone rose up on either side of her, mossy green with growth, and below her stretched a pit of darkness. She hung in the opening as long as she could, the constant pressure of the spring pushing against her; only the grip of her fingers on the stone shelf stopped her from being thrust back to the surface.

The water had formed this cavern: forced its way up to the surface by carving a path through the rocks below. As the Force had guided her on this path, from Chad to Master Altis to the Moonflower Nebula to here. 

She released her hold and let the current propel her out of the water to catch her breath. Luke still lay on his rock; the fish still swam beneath her feet.

 _If the Force is a river,_ she thought, _I’ll just have to follow its flow._


End file.
